We see cycles everywhere. In many ways, cycles decide the foundation of the world’s cultures. The seasons run in cycles, and due to the different weather and temperatures that come with them, many other things run in cycles as well. Agriculture is dependent on the cycles of weather, determining when crops are planted, grown and harvested. It was this cycle that determined when school started and stopped. There were certain times of the year’s cycle when farming families needed the daylong help of their children to get all of the work done, hence summer vacation.

It doesn’t take long to see how one cycle builds on top of another. Many holidays originated with the changing of seasons, and several sports depend on the seasons’ weather. With each cycle, people require different items and services. Companies were created to fulfill those needs at the time they were needed, and so more cycles manifested, and with them, sales cycles.

At first, those businesses tended to be focused on a single task. They did one thing, provided a single service, and the cycle of their business was built around that original purpose. In most cases, sales peaked during one part of that cycle, and the profits earned had to be carefully managed throughout the year—even with discipline, this can be stressful on a business and leave it vulnerable to the changes of one industry. Today, however, there are so many different sales cycles starting and stopping, intersecting here and there, that businesses find themselves in the wonderful position of being able to choose the cycles that make the most sense for them throughout the year, and therefore, make sure that profits are incoming throughout the year. Today, there is no need to wait for the “busy time of year.” In this article, we’ll explore those different seasons and cycles of awards sales so that you can make every day the busy time of the year.

While sales for promotional items and corporate awards seem to peak in the fourth quarter, these products can be sold year round, and they may make a nice fill-in for an otherwise slow time of year.

Seasonality Cycles
The first step in determining which sales cycles make the most sense for your business to service is to learn what those cycles are. There are well defined cycles for the school year, sports and holidays, and these follow the classical seasons. And, there are seasons for promotional products and corporate awards that seem to have been composed by a different drummer and beat.

“In the awards industry, the awards sales cycle equals seasonality,” says Cathy Garcia of PDU in South El Monte, California. “Sports seasonality usually launches in January and finishes up by the end of June. The peak of spring is in May. Corporate awards seasonality is September to December, and its peak is November and December.”

In agreement, Dawn Sackett of JDS Industries in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, adds, “Sales cycles tend to follow the seasons. Athletic awards sell best during the sports seasons. For example, basketball awards sell well in the winter, baseball in the summer, football in the fall. Other cycles include academic awards in spring, due to the end of the school year, and gift-themed items sell best in the fall leading up to the holiday season.”

Casey Schechter of Simba Cal in Oxnard, California, notes that, “March through June is our busy time. Also, November and December are busy. What we notice is that not only does the number of orders increase, but the volume per order increases.”

It is no surprise that the school year plays such a huge role in the awards sales cycle, says Bob D’Andrade of ATdesigns in Toronto, Canada. “Other than the standard slowdown in mid-summer (mid-July to mid-August), we are typically affected by the school year. That is, as many of our clients deal with schools and universities, their sales tend to start to pick up in activity in October and November—about the time when schools start to get past dealing with the new curriculum and fresh enrollments. That’s when their attention starts to turn to intramural sports. This pick-up continues over Christmas, and it reaches its apex in the New Year. It carries on until fading in late May or early June.”

Of course, not every business follows the seasons so closely. Margaret Johnson of Johnson Plastics in Minneapolis, Minnesota, notes, “In the world of supplying engraving materials for laser and rotary engraving, sales are pretty consistent throughout the year. Now, there are a few little spurts that come around in the spring, and then we probably fall off around Christmastime. But, in general, they aren’t the same type of spikes that the trophy industry has. It makes sense. For example, a trophy shop may make thousands of football trophies, but when the season is over, it’s over until the following fall, and those sales create that spike,” says Johnson.

Johnson brings up an important point. While many awards shops customers are seasonal consumers, they can also pursue industrial clients whose needs are likely to be much more consistent.

High school sports programs will often follow traditional seasons.

The Sports Seasons
There is no other aspect of the awards industry that lends itself to sales cycles and seasons as readily as sports awards. Sports grew out of the seasons, and while today’s technology and travel allows a few dedicated kids to play their favorite sport year round, the vast majority of participants play during the traditional seasons.

Garcia breaks it down thus: baseball, softball and 35% of the total of soccer are sold between January and June. The other 65% of soccer awards are sold between August and November. Basketball takes place December to March, and wrestling is December and January, as is bowling, though it tends to extend one month further, into February.

Sackett notes that sports are usually very seasonal. “We see the highest sales in individual sports during that sport’s season. However, many schools hold end-of-the-year athletic banquets that reward achievement to individual players. This, in combination with the end-of-year academic-award season and the spring athletics season, combines to make April to June a very busy time of year for traditional trophies and awards.”

There is no denying the seasonality of sports, but D’Andrade says in general, “Sports are year round in their entirety.” By sport, he says that football is likely to be busy late summer to December with playoffs early in the new year. Baseball is busy from May to September. Basketball starts about mid-November to April, and while hockey ends about the same time, it begins around mid-October.

Sports, says D’Andrade, are gold more or less year round, but he says more ordering is done in the fall and early in the year to lay in supplies for spring tournaments and summer volume of outings.

While Schechter agrees that sports awards sell all year, he says that Simba Cal sees a definite spike in late spring and early summer. “Because of the travel teams, there are awards to be made for every sport year round, but there are definite times of the year when each sport peaks.” In addition to sports awards, Schechter says that they sell a lot of academic awards and graduation items during this time of year.

Baseball is a very popular spring sport, and Schechter says that one of his best-selling items for that segment is trading pins. “We offer three-day turnaround on trading pins, which is great, because a lot of teams don’t know that they’ve been invited until two weeks before.” Explaining trading pins, Schechter says, “It’s kind of like trading cards. They’ll go to tournaments, and each kid may bring 50 to 100 pins, and they’re trying to trade their pins to other teams. They’re almost like keepsakes. It’s a huge industry.”

Causes, such as Race For The Cure are always in need of gifts and keepsakes.

The Cycle For Corporate Awards & Promotional Items
As mentioned earlier, if any of the sales cycles marches to its own beat, it’s the market for corporate awards. Johnson says that this is because many companies order awards for their end of their specific company’s year, which could be any time of the year.

That said, most agree that corporate award sales pick up toward the end of the year. “This is when JDS sees an increase in sales of Perpetual Plaques for awards such as employee of the month and year, as well as other corporate awards and gift items for rewarding achievements from throughout the year. Anything from attendance to sales awards is generally awarded on an annual basis. We also sell a lot of our gift items such as Wine Boxes and Gift Sets at that time of year,” says Sackett.

D’Andrade says that ATdesigns doesn’t experience much of a noticeable bulge in corporate sales in any given quarter or month—other than the natural dip in summer holiday periods. “We seem to receive a decent amount of volume year round. However, there is a slight uptick in late fall for Christmas banquets and year-end recognition winners.”

The end of the year doesn’t signify a drop off in corporate awards sales for every company. “For us,” says Simba Cal’s Schechter, “corporate awards are sold at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, December, January and February.” Schechter adds that there is a definite two-week dead period at the beginning of December due to Christmas. He also notes that many of those items are gifts as well as awards.

As for promotional items, D’Andrade speculates that there may be some additional volumes in ornaments and similar items for Christmas giving and company promotional launches for the new year.

Garcia adds that she has seen trends in the promotional products market that follow very similar to the corporate market.

Sackett, however, says that promotional items are not as seasonal as awards tend to be. The great thing about promotional items is that different industries experience different “busy seasons.” Therefore, a retailer may have a customer who needs promotional items in summer, because that is their busy season.

“But, the same retailer can have another customer whose busy season is in the winter, and they need their promotional products at that time of year. A good example of this might be a local water park in summer and a local ski resort in the winter. For this reason, many award retailers are finding that selling promotional items can be a great way to ‘fill in the gaps’ between the traditional awards busy times,” says Sackett.

The armed forces have needs for awards and recognition products in all seasons.

Making The Most Of The Cycles
In talking about the different seasons and cycles for the awards industry, it is easy to think of the calendar with its months and dates. There are even days marked for the official start of each season. However, we know from experience that seasons don’t change according to dates. Each season transitions to the next so smoothly that anyone would be hard pressed to name the date that any particular season was left behind. In order to make the most of the different cycles for awards sales, a business should be able to transition as smoothly as the seasons themselves, and in order to do this, organization is key.

First, says Sackett, take the time to identify the cycles and their approximate times of year. “Second, it is a good idea to schedule planning time for how best to take advantage of the cycles that you have identified. For example, do your planning for the upcoming up-cycle in the down-cycle previous to it.”

The goal, says Sackett, would be to not have a slow time. But, if you do have slow times, take advantage of those. Plan what marketing tools you are going to implement to bring in more orders during your upcoming cycle.

“Also,” says Sackett, “plan for how you are going to meet the production demands that your marketing efforts bring in. Another great way to maximize your ability to take advantage of times in between cycles is to develop a checklist. When you find yourself thinking ‘I wish I had done this ahead of time,’ or ‘It would be nice if this were already done,’ add those items to your checklist for the next cycle. That way, they will be done ahead of time during the next cycle and you will find yourself one step ahead during your next busy time.”

According to what her customers tell her, Johnson says, it is good to be ahead of the curve. “For example, if they are creating awards for football teams who have been their customers in the past, I would think they would be very proactive and create a new idea for an award, and go in and try to secure the business before the season starts. I would have an entire package prepared to present to them.” Johnson adds that this not only helps shops secure the sale, it also helps them to plan their workflow and sales revenue.

However, according to Garcia, the award retailer needs to market to their customer almost on top of the season. “The award retailer is not going to purchase much in advance of when they need the product. Methods include direct mail, email blasts, ads in local sport flyers; telemarketing to their target customer (team moms, coaches, league designated purchasers of awards, etc.).”

She adds, “The key to understanding award cycles is to understand seasonality. PDU markets to over 100 sports, activities and corporate events. Each of those areas carries with it a specific seasonality. For both the retailer and supplier, if they are not paying attention to the seasonality, they miss the entire season. Extremely expensive.”

As with any marketing plan, says D’Andrade, stay in constant contact and feed your clients with good helpful marketing materials long before the sales cycle begins. “This is actually why we created so many marketing flyers for use by our many distributors. We purposely created a wide variety of subject matter to try to offer the broadest coverage that we could. Our clients can request low resolution or high resolution for sales flyers that specifically suit their marketing plans. It’s ideal for marketing in email or print format or mixing them up—that’s the best plan!”

While planning ahead is a great idea, says Schechter, he adds that a personal visit never hurts either. “I feel like face-to-face is still the best way to do business. We do have a large variety of customers that do go visit the schools or visit the leagues. Another thing that is beneficial is to know what your supplier can do for you. Talk to them about new products and present a package of ideas to the school or league.”

Schechter adds that when the awards retailer is knowledgeable about a wide range of products, they can offer the customer a suitable range of awards that fits their budget. “Everyone has a budget, and everyone has something in mind that they’re looking for. If you went to the school and asked them about their budget, you could create a package of awards that fits the budget.”

Season’s Greetings
“There are built-in cycles in our industry. That doesn’t mean that award retailers can’t find ways to bridge those sales gaps. Look at other industries in your community. I guarantee you can find at least three industries for each down cycle in your sales. Make an effort to target the businesses in those industries. Sell them awards; sell them promotional items. Sell them any products that you have the ability to provide. Just remember to plan ahead. Use that previous cycle to plan for the next one. Don’t try to get their attention during their busy season. Make a contact and sell them on you and your services before their busy season hits. That way, you’ll have more of their attention, and you’ll already have that relationship in place when they get to their crunch time and need to call someone for products. Remember, it’s good to be able to react, but it’s better to be proactive,” says Sackett.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.